This episode is part two of a two-part special episode. You can listen in any order. Unlike our standard episodes where we zoom in on one particular campaign, we’re zooming out around broader strategy themes. To help us zoom out, we invited five insightful thought leaders, who each recently wrote vital resources for campaign organizers, to talk with Andrew.

In part two of two, we talk with two guests. First Lauren Jacobs of Power Switch Action highlights the role of corporate targeting campaigns in resisting authoritarianism, pulling from her co-written article Reining in Amazon to Build Up People-Powered Democracy in The Forge. Then, we hear from Harmony Goldberg of Grassroots Power Project, about interventions from her co-authored guide Governing Power. Beyond cutting issues for easy wins given a terrain of power, she invites campaigners to orient toward the long term project of winning durable governing power, to transform the terrain of power itself. The episode touches themes of effective allies, building enforcement into demands, narrative struggle, and the importance of base building fundamentals.

Lauren Jacobs is the executive director of PowerSwitch Action, a national network of local powerbuilding organizations that weave together community, labor, faith, racial justice, and environmental justice movements into powerful coalitions. She has dedicated her life to supporting working people as they gain power to shape their own working and living conditions. Lauren has organized with textile, janitorial, security, and restaurant workers at UNITE, SEIU, and the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United. She recently published an article on Why Jeff Bezos Loves Trump’s Big, Ugly Bill.

Harmony Goldberg is the Director of Praxis at Grassroots Power Project and has been providing political education and strategic facilitation for social movements in the United States for more than 25 years. She cut her teeth in California’s youth and student movement in the 1990s, where she helped to found and lead SOUL, the School Of Unity and Liberation. Then, she worked closely with the domestic workers movement and other low-wage workers organizations as the workers center movement was coming into its own. Harmony completed her PhD in Cultural Anthropology at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, where her research focused on the promising forms of worker’s struggle and class politics that were emergent in domestic worker organizing in New York City. At GPP, Harmony works closely with People’s Action, and she leads the development of strategic education programs. She recently coauthored a booklet on Governing Power.

Support the show

Visit www.trainingforchange.org for workshops and training tools, or to make a donation. Follow us on social media @tfctrains. The Craft of Campaigns podcast is made possible by grassroots donors. We welcome your feedback; if you like these episodes, please consider donating, to keep the show running. This podcast is hosted by Andrew Willis Garcés and produced by Ali Roseberry-Polier.

This episode is part one of a two-part special episode. You can listen in any order. Unlike our standard episodes where we zoom in on one particular campaign, we’re zooming out around broader strategy themes. To help us zoom out, we invited five insightful thought leaders, who each recently wrote vital resources for campaign organizers, to talk with Andrew.

In part one, we talk with three guests. First James Mumm grounds us in ‘what is organizing’ anyway, the importance of thinking like a target in power analysis, and why campaigns must contest for mainstream values, pulling from his co-written report The Antidote To Authoritarianism. Then we hear from Stephanie Luce about her co-written book, Practical Radicals, how campaigns relate to her Seven Strategies framework, and learning from “successful failures.” Finally, Bill Fletcher differentiates between ‘campaigns’ and ‘movements’ and makes the case for broad united fronts, from his article in Convergence Magazine, “Campaigns and Movements: How Are They Connected, How Do They Differ?”

James Mumm is the Chief of Institutional Advancement at People's Action Institute. For the past 35 years, James has worked as an organizer with community organizations in Chicago and the Bronx, and nationally and internationally with Greenpeace USA, 22nd Century Initiative, National Training and Information Center, and National People's Action. James also writes book reviews for busy organizers.

Stephanie Luce is Professor of Labor Studies at the School of Labor and Urban Studies, and Professor of Sociology at the Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY). She received her BA in economics at the University of California, Davis and her PhD in sociology and her MA in industrial relations from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She is the author of several books on living wage campaigns and the labor movement. Her latest book, co-authored with Deepak Bhargava, is Practical Radicals: Seven Strategies to Change the World, and she cohosts a podcast with the same name.

Bill Fletcher Jr has worked for several labor unions in addition to serving as a senior staffperson in the national AFL-CIO. Fletcher is the former president of TransAfrica Forum; a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies; and in the leadership of several other projects. Fletcher is the author of several books about organized labor, a syndicated columnist and a regular media commentator.

Support the show

Visit www.trainingforchange.org for workshops and training tools, or to make a donation. Follow us on social media @tfctrains. The Craft of Campaigns podcast is made possible by grassroots donors. We welcome your feedback; if you like these episodes, please consider donating, to keep the show running. This podcast is hosted by Andrew Willis Garcés and produced by Ali Roseberry-Polier.

In our Season 2 Finale, we’ll hear about a group of Quakers who wanted to experiment with campaign strategy to tackle climate change. Their experiment ended up forcing one of the country’s largest banks to stop funding mountaintop removal coal mining after a multi-year campaign and hundreds of direct actions around the country. Ingrid Lakey describes intervening in a culture that prioritized personal solutions to the climate crisis and building an organization that was pro-confrontation and pro-system change. They built action teams around the country that shut down shareholder meetings and disrupted business as usual until their demands were met. Although the campaign started as an experimental intervention, it remains one of the most successful campaigns to take on climate finance.

Check out a writeup on this campaign at The Forge.

Take our Season 2 Listener Survey and visit our brand new Campaign Strategy Workbook.

Ingrid Lakey is one of the founders of Earth Quaker Action Team, a grassroots organization working to build a just and sustainable economy using nonviolent direct action campaigns. EQAT’s first campaign succeeded in pressuring PNC Bank to stop funding mountaintop removal coal mining. More than ten years ago, she gave up a career in public radio to follow her leading to be a climate justice activist. Ingrid has been a trainer and facilitator for 25 years, leading workshops on anti-racism, diversity, team building, non-violent direct action, and conflict. She is a lifelong Quaker who was raised in a household where activism and spirituality were intertwined.

Support the show

Visit www.trainingforchange.org for workshops and training tools, or to make a donation. Follow us on social media @tfctrains. The Craft of Campaigns podcast is made possible by grassroots donors. We welcome your feedback; if you like these episodes, please consider donating, to keep the show running. This podcast is hosted by Andrew Willis Garcés and produced by Ali Roseberry-Polier.